Witnesses gave differing views of fight in Post Alley

By HECTOR CASTRO, P-I REPORTER

Published
10:00 pm PDT, Thursday, September 7, 2006

A score of witnesses, dozens of pairs of eyes, and no one person had exactly the same story to tell about the night in June when off-duty Seattle police Officer Zsolt Dornay shot a man during a brawl in Post Alley.

"Everyone sees something different," Dan Satterberg, chief of staff for King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, said Thursday. "It's not unusual that you have different perspectives and incomplete perspectives."

This week, the prosecutor's office released more than 400 pages of documents, including interviews with key witnesses, which are part of the investigation into the June 24 melee. In the fight, Dornay was beaten and James F. Walker, a Seattle lawyer, was shot and wounded.

The shooting has been embroiled in controversy from the start for several reasons -- it involved a Seattle police officer who has been the subject of complaints before; in an unprecedented move, Chief Gil Kerlikowske called in an outside agency to investigate the shooting; and just last week, prosecutors determined that there was not enough evidence to charge anyone with a crime.

The lack of prosecution so incensed leaders of the Seattle Police Officers' Guild that they took out ads in local papers asking for tips, and urging tipsters to call Seattle detectives, not Kent police, who investigated the incident.

Seattle police spokeswoman Debra Brown said Thursday that no tips had come in as a result of the ad and that, should there be any, Seattle would coordinate with Kent investigators.

With the release this week of the investigative file compiled by Kent, it is clear just how convoluted the witness testimony was.

All agreed on the main points, that it began when Dornay rode his personal motorcycle through Post Alley late that night and was blocked by a woman, Lisa Dias, a paralegal assistant for Walker. The two had been at nearby Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub. Witnesses also agreed that the altercation between Dornay and Dias quickly escalated, culminating with Dornay shoving the woman against a metal parking garage door.

And, all witnesses agreed, several men in the crowded alley then grabbed Dornay, who was not in uniform, and threw him to the ground. Some witnesses even identified Walker as among those who grabbed Dornay.

But no witness was found who either could, or in some cases would, identify any of the people actually throwing the punches and kicks.

One 33-year-old man who witnessed the struggle told investigators that he saw Walker grab Dornay after the officer shoved Dias into the gate.

But then, asked whether Walker struck Dornay, he said, "I didn't see any individual, you know, who was making blows because it was just fists and arms flying."

A 24-year-old woman, asked whether she recognized any of those swarming over Dornay, refused to answer the question and brought her own attorney when she met with Kent detectives. Two of her friends were suspected of being among those who beat the off-duty officer.

The documents also reveal that, given a task of conducting an impartial investigation, Kent detectives tried to do just that. When they accepted the case from Seattle detectives, both Dias and Walker were listed as suspects, along with three other men. Kent detectives, in their documentation, changed that classification and listed all five of those as persons of interest.

When Mike Frost, Walker's lawyer, claimed that Seattle detectives were leading witnesses to obtain statements favorable to Dornay, Kent investigators re-interviewed all witnesses, and a deputy prosecutor was present at most of those interviews.

Kent detectives found at least five people who wanted to alter the statements they gave to Seattle officers.

John Macklin, who saw the shooting from his apartment overlooking the alley, was one of those. Contacted Thursday, Macklin said he didn't believe the Seattle officer who interviewed him was trying to be biased in favor of Dornay, and took some of the blame for wanting to change his statement.

"Maybe it was just the heat of the moment," he said.

But another witness who wanted to make changes to his information said the mistakes weren't so innocent. In his original statement to police, the Seattle officer wrote that the witness saw Dornay "grab the female and push her up against a chain link fence."

Later, to Kent investigators, the man said Dornay did more than just push Dias.

"It was like a push and a slam into the gate. It was a hard push, a forceful push," he said.

On Thursday, the man, who asked not to be identified, said he didn't feel the Seattle officer listened to him with an open mind. "I felt like it was always one-sided," he said.

The investigative file also revealed some details that have not been released before.

Among them was that Dornay was on his way that night to meet two agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration; and that Dias, described as intoxicated by several witnesses, actually had a half empty bottle of tequila in her purse, though she denied drinking any of it.

In addition, a videotape that might have shed light on the brawl was never seen by investigators. When Kent police took the case, they asked Seattle for the evidence already collected and videotape from two known cameras in the alley, including one in the parking garage behind the roll-down metal door that Dias was pushed against. The door has spaces and detectives believed the camera might have captured some of the fight.

On June 28, four days after the incident, Kent police asked Seattle to obtain the videotapes from these cameras. Two days later, when Kent detectives asked again about the videotape, Seattle police said no tapes existed.

Later, Kent police contacted the owner of the video camera directly and discovered that the tape records over itself after seven days. By then, it was July 11, more than two weeks after the shooting.